So, on this night, Cuckoo put on her hat and jacket. She meant to go out, to walk anywhere, just to move, to be in the open air. As she went into the passage she ran against Mrs. Brigg. The gas-jet was alight, and the landlady could see how she was dressed. Suddenly Mrs. Brigg fell on Cuckoo and began slobbering her with kisses.
The old wretch actually began to whimper. She had been sore tried, and must have had a fragment of affection for Cuckoo somewhere about her nature. For she did not want to part with her, and the tears she now let fall were prompted not only by a prospect of money coming in to her, but also of pleasure in the thought that Cuckoo had not entirely gone to the bad. She wept like the mother who sees her child return from its evil way.
Cuckoo thrust her away without a word, violently. Mrs. Brigg did not resent the action, but fell against the passage wall sobbing and murmuring, "My precious, my chickabiddy!" while Cuckoo banged the hall door and went out into the night. Then the landlady, moved by a sacred impulse of pardon, bolted down to her kitchen and began to rummage enthusiastically in her larder. She knew Cuckoo had been near to starving, and had supported the knowledge with great equanimity while this prodigal daughter chose to wander in wicked ways of idleness. But now she killed the fatted calf with trembling hands, and made haste to set out a reverend supper in Cuckoo's parlour to welcome her on her return. The cold bacon, the pot of porter, the bread, the butter, all were Mrs. Brigg's symbols of pardon and of peace! And as she laid them on the table she sang:
"In 'er 'air (whimper) she wore a white cam-eelyer,
Dark blue (whimper) was the colour of 'er heye." (Whimper.)
It was like a religious service with one devout worshipper.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Cuckoo walked slowly along. It was a dark night, very still and very damp. The frost had gone. The stars were spending their brightness on clouds that were a carpet to them, a roof to poor human beings who could not see them. In the air was the unnatural, and so almost unpleasant, warmth that, coming suddenly out of due season, strikes at the health of many people, and exhausts them as it would never exhaust them in time of summer. Cuckoo, faint with hunger, fainter yet with sorrow, felt intensely fatigued. She did not consider where she was going, but just walked on slowly and heavily; but the habit of her life, profiting by her unconsciousness, led her towards that long street in which she had passed hours which, if added together, would have made a large part of her life. Piccadilly drew her to it as the whirlpool draws the thing which inadvertently touches even the farthest outpost of its influence. Presently she was at the Circus. The little boys upon the kerb, crying newspapers, greeted her with excited comments and with laughter. They had missed her for so long that they had imagined her ill, perhaps dead. Seeing her turn up again, they were full of greedy ardour for her news. They put to her searching and opprobrious questions. She did not hear them. Soon she was in the midst of the crowd. Yet she scarcely realized that she was not alone. No mechanical smile came to her face. It seemed as if she had forgotten the old wiles of the streets, put off forever the frigid mask of vice, that freezes young blood, yet makes old blood sometimes run strangely faster. What was the street to Cuckoo now, or Cuckoo to the street? Once it had at least been much, almost everything, to her. And she had been perhaps as much to it as one of the paving-stones on which the feet of its travellers trod. Now things were changed. The human wolf was in the snow still, but it no longer feared starvation. Rather did it live in starvation with a fervour that was untouched by anything animal.
Cuckoo walked on.
The crowd flowed up and down, in two opposed and gliding streams. The warm heaviness of this premature air of spring had brought many people out, and had even induced some of the women to assume costumes of mid-summer. There were great white hats floating on the stream, like swans. Bright and light coloured dresses touched the black gown of Cuckoo as with fingers of contempt. She did not see them. Many women who knew her by sight murmured to each other their surprise at her reappearance. One, a huge negress in orange cotton, ejaculated a loud and guttural: "My sakes!"
Unheeding, Cuckoo walked on.